Cotton Candy added.
The special for Cheesecake matcha will be available only by special invitation anyway. The goal is to add few more reviews from people who really loved the cheesecake matcha. Sort of follow up reviews.
If you had a choice of picking someone to spread the word of your product, who would you choose? Someone who really enjoyed the product or someone how liked it or maybe thought it was just ok?

To be honest, though it will likely mean missing out, my thought on the best way to increase the rating is to get it out to people who haven’t tried it. Getting it out to those of us who already love it, might bump the rating up a bit, but if we’ve already put it up there it’s not going to move much. However, if you get it out to people who haven’t tried it ever (for various reason) then there’s a chance that it’ll increase the number of reviews and because i have that much faith in the blend, bump it up higher that way.

If the only two choices are ppl who enjoyed it and people who thought it was ok, you’d probably want to look at why they only thought it was “ok.” Is it because they didn’t order a strong enough flavour? is it that they don’t like matcha? do they hate cheesecake? gasp Some of those variables aren’t going to change no matter how much deliciousness you send their way.

I agree with what Sil said! OR maybe they didn’t have enough to play around and learn how to properly mix it or try it in different ways like lattes etc.
So I guess either new people as Sil points out those points are TRUE. OR people who liked it but need more of it to play with – still I would go Sil’s route and get those who are tempted but have not yet ordered.

@liberteas – so funny story? I don’t like cheesecake often. I find it’s too hit or miss to find truly good cheesecake most places. But man..this matcha? it’s what all amazing cheesecake needs to strive for!

I know I am tempted by over a dozen flavors! I have liked the flavors I ordered with family members in mind even when it was a flavor that wasn’t necessarily a personal fave, so I am pretty sure cheesecake flavor is going to send me into throes of ecstasy, LOL! As will French Vanilla, Bavarian Cream, Amaretto, all the Cherry Flavors, etc….

Your deal kept me from delving more into oolongs (i’ve had a few which I have liked). I’ve never had matcha and it better be good seeing as I – at bare minimum – need a bamboo whisk to even make the stuff

You don’t have to have the whisk! I use my regular kitchen whisk for a cup of matcha, or hand held immersion blender for big lattes. Also, the sweet and fruity flavors are fantastic just shaken in a tiny amount of water in a bottle until it is dissolved with no clumps, then fill the rest of the way with cold water and drink. Makes a great boost for a trip to the gym or getting the yard work done!

Ya, you don’t need a whisk. I’m going to use my Vortex cup when I finally get to trying the matcha I ordered. And some folks have said that they just drop it in their water bottle and shake it like a Polaroid picture.

I have not tried a blender except for when I make smoothies and whenever I make a smoothie, I always add Matcha to it. It might turn it a weird pea soup color (and I really hate pea soup), but it adds yummy flavor to my smoothies.

I always just use my bamboo whisk but, before I had one, I used to use a fork and it did a pretty decent job. I will say that the bamboo whisk does a little better job than the fork did. I’ve also used my battery operated hand frother tool and this did a better job than the fork, but not as well as the whisk. I still use the frother though when I make Matcha lattes because I don’t want to get milk on my bamboo whisk. I don’t know why but something just tells me that this would be a bad idea.

shrug anyway… yeah, a whisk isn’t absolutely essential. I have really gotten good with using the whisk, though, so I don’t think I’ll switch to another method now, but, if you find something that works, go with it.

I just ordered pumpkin pie and chai. I had not noticed the chai flavor before, is it new?
I would love to try cheesecake, bel. Choc., caramel popcorn, Irish crime….my list just keeps growing as my love for matcha increases:)

New feature added: Organic Matcha.
Now you can choose to have regular or organic matcha used to create a flavored matcha.
It’s only available for green, white and 50/50 matcha options. Sorry, but I’m still working on getting black and red matcha in organic form. Not as easy as I thought it would be :-(
Anyway, enjoy :-)

Very cool I was just browsing your website a little while ago and noticed it. Three people who have tried your matcha at my house say they are placing orders, including my daughter. These are people who never had matcha and were not green tea drinkers. :)

Just giving you a heads up:
Please note that the promo will end on 10/14/12. Reviews received after this date will not be rewarded under the program rules. All issued Gift Certificates must be used by 10/21/12 or they will be expired.

I’m having some trouble deciding on which fruit flavour to get with my next order. I want to use it primarily for having shaken in a water bottle.
Right now it’s between:

Watermelon
Grape
Blueberry
Sangria

Which one do you all think would be best iced? Or are there any must haves I’ve forgotten? I want to make an order maybe today in hopes that they might get to me in time to review before the promo ends. I’ll also be getting cotton candy, more cheesecake, and possibly irish cream. So any fruity-matcha suggestions would be lovely! Oh, and the only fruity flavour I currently have is boysenberry, which I love.

Aw shucks, I didn’t see your reply Daisy and I went ahead and ordered the watermelon. Thanks so much for the offer though! I’m looking forward to our swap, but I’m not in a rush either. Maybe in a few paycheques :P

And yes Claire you should definitely try the matcha-bottle! It’s so so good that way :)

I was wondering if there are any reviewers that do reviews for other blogs and if so for which ones. I’m trying to find a way to spread the word to other blogs and what’s a better way than asking current reviewers.
Any info would be appreciated.

I do Teaviews! I haven´t posted in a while because they can{t send me samples to Ecuador :(, but it is a nice place full of nice people and great tea! I would love to review Red Leaf Teas there if you would like! :)

Also for the record – if you notice on twitter I have over 5000 followers – and have been using hash tags to get you retweeted from tea review blogs, so far you have been retweeted many times. This is my business account so hopefully it is helping some.

Update #1: Matcha samples results.
Remember the matcha samples I have sent out? I thought you may want to know the results.
Matcha B was winning over Matcha A, but only a very little bit. It seems that you liked both samples. Some like one of them for better flavor, some liked the other one for better froth, in the nut shell.
Thank you very much for the help.
On the bad side. Only 12 reviews came back to me out of 20 samples shipped :-(
I working on a samples of much higher quality (around Royal/Imperial grade) and this time I won’t be able to do free samples, since after I requested a LARGE sample of the higher quality, I was charged for it. I will only ask $5 (product cost, retail value $20) for 2 samples of 15g each + $3 shipping. To avoid any problems of getting reviews back I was thinking of charging $15 for samples and when I get the review back, I would refund $7 back to your gift certificate.
I know this is different from the first samples, but I had to adjust it a bit, since the first samples shipment did not yield the results expected.
Any takers?

I have been getting curious about unflavored matcha since I have never had it. Red Leaf is my first matcha ever! So I would probably participate, because I expect with plain matcha one can tell a difference in the quality level, and I like quality things.

Thank you for posting the results. I so wish that it had been more productive and had the others replied with their findings perhaps there would have been a more clear winner!
I know you have your hands full already but maybe you could delegate someone to PM those who have still not replied and try to get them to get back to you. Life gets busy so I am sure some people just lost track of tasting them.

Update#2: Free Matcha Promo.
I have to be honest with you. I love reading your reviews. I think I may even be addicted to it (is it really that wrong?) and I have already used part of next year budget to prolong the life of this promo.
I’d like to give you a bit of a view from a seller’s prospective.
In the last few weeks the number of reviewer has doubled! I’m shipping so much free matcha, that I’m getting concerned about getting funds to pay for the upcoming shipment. I’m trying to find a way to keep the promo going someway and here’s my plan.
Plan 1:
I could adjust the gift certificates that they can only pay for, say 30% of the order. This way you would still get a big discount on any flavored matcha and I would get some money to pay for the product. This way you would not have to spend all your gift certificate by October 21. It would carry over.
Plan 2:
Same as plan 1, but I could adjust the percentage based on amount reviews published.
0-10 reviews, Gift certificate would pay for 25% of total order.
10-20 reviews, 30% of total order
20+ reviews, 35% of total order.
I would be like an extra incentive program for reviewers.

What do you think?

PS. did you know that with all the flavors, matcha bases, flavor strength and other options, (not counting size) you can buy flavored matcha in 6440 different ways!!! Drinking one matcha a day, it would take you 17 years to try them all. :-)

While I love your free matcha promo and did take advantage of it once, I’ve often wondered how you afford it. I’ve seen dozens if not hundreds of reviews in the last few months that seem to be for matcha credit, so I’m assuming it has cost a lot in product to keep that going. Out of curiosity, are you seeing a corresponding increase in sales without the certificates? The reviews are great, but if people just keep getting free matcha and not paying for any it doesn’t help your business. Anyway, I think that IF you want to keep it going to keep reviews up, the idea of a % off is nice. Instead of issuing a certificae for $15, you could issue a code for whatever % off you decide upon and thus guarantee some money in sales, even on those reviewed ones. Best of luck in continued business!

Uniquity:
I like your idea of code to create a discount, unfortunately to create as many discount codes as reviews is too much time consuming.
To create a one code would be faster, but someone could do review once and use the code over and over. To keep track if someone is misusing the code is impossible.
The sales have improved a bit, and I hope it keeps going up.
And yes, there has been a lot of product shipped. Unlike paying for ads in Google that disappear as soon as you stop paying. At least here the links and reviews will stay for much longer. I hope this way the marketing money is better allocated.

Red Leaf: I can tell you that my daughter has already ordered, and two other people say they will be ordering soon. They all tried the matcha at my house and had never heard of it or your company, but they fell in love with the flavored drinks we had! So I would say that the marketing has worked on different levels, Internet exposure and grass roots! I only bought it because of reading Azzrian’s reviews, so her reviews essentially gave birth to at least two new customers but probably four.

I do like plan 2, since I do plan on continuing to write many more reviews of different combinations in the future. Would you plan on rolling this out right away, or after Oct 21? I also echo Awkward Soul’s other questions about how the discount would work.

I don’t mind either plan, I think. Plan 1 does look more straightforward, so easier for you to manage as DaisyChubb said. But if for Plan 2 you just have a cursory look in mind for checking reviews, then the incentive part of that could be good for you without being too time consuming.

For me, I know I’m not going to fly through the matcha and their reviews. Being in Australia, It’s more cost-effective for me to order large sizes of flavors that I’m quite sure I’ll enjoy—it’s also a safer bet for me that way too. I also limit myself to ordering when I won’t end up with a stash of matcha that could end up stale.

I could justify purchasing still with 25-30% off, whatever you decide (and maybe a little extra if you allow for the occasional matcha on sale to still qualify). ;) I’ve also talked myself into believing that it’s helping you more than hurting if I use my gift certificates for these large-size purchases and so go well over the certificate amount. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I really hope I’m not! :)

Additional option:
increase the % gift certificate can pay in the order amount, but exclude the products on promo. This would give greater discount on wide range of flavored matcha product, but limit the option to purchase product on sale.
Any suggestions or thoughts? Any comments would be much appreciated.

I would increase the number of discount to the number of tealog posts :D that way the more people drink it, the more they get off with a maximum of X% and that could be exclusive to steepster people (and other review sites you like) Just an idea :D

Although it is a thrill to get a super duper bargain like applying a gift certificate to a product that is on sale, it is not a thrill to put someone out of business! :) Most retail stores do not allow coupons on items that are already on sale except in special circumstances, so I would have to say that your last proposal there is only reasonable.

Helena: I was considering this option, but it did not work out for 2 reasons.
1. If I were to do it manually, count the reviews and change the %, it would take too much time and be counterproductive.
2. If I were to hire programmer to make it work automatically, it would cost to much :-(

I also agree that the certificates should not count toward the sale item. Don’t forget, your customers are on your side here. We want to see you grow not get completely taken advantage of by these promotions.

Whatever option works better for you is the option I’d like to see done.

I actually thought you had put it into a soup dish cause of the angle and my small iPhone screen. Then I figured it out. :) I was wondering if you planned to eat your matcha like soup. Hehe maybe with some "croutons’ made of cookies. Mmmm

LOL no its actually my matcha bowl HOWEVER it was not meant to be when I bought it! I got it off Fab.com and it was only 5 bucks! I got two of them. I THOUGHT they would be good for soup and such but they were too small so I kept them as matcha bowls and they work PERFECTLY!
This is what it looks like: http://fab.com/inspiration/yamagasumi-bowl